Ruhs, Martin. "Labor Immigration Policies in High-income Countries: variations across political regimes and varieties of capitalism". Journal of Legal Studies, Forthcoming (2017).

Ruhs, Martin. "Labor Immigration Policies in High-income Countries: variations across political regimes and varieties of capitalism". Journal of Legal Studies, Forthcoming (2017).

• The design of a labour immigration regime must account for three essential questions: how many migrant workers should be admitted?; How should migrants be selected for admission?; What rights should migrant workers have? (2).
• The features of immigration regimes in 33 high-income countries are examined based on this schema, with the results contrasted regarding the level of democracy in these countries and the existence of liberal or welfare state economic structures (1).
• Overall, the most common form of work available for migrants in middle-income or wealthy countries is temporary labour. Skilled migrants face many fewer restrictions to migration than unskilled migrants, and generally are given more rights in host countries than unskilled migrants. Countries more open to immigrants will also impose more restrictions on the rights they enjoy (2, 6).
• The latter point of increased restriction on migrant rights only holds true for certain autocracies. As a whole there is no trade off between the openness of a system to immigration and the rights of migrant workers in democracies (21).
• The author conceptualizes migration policy as being formed through the interaction of four factors: maximizing economic growth, protecting domestic workers from wage deflation, socio-cultural integrity, and security concerns. The ability of states to balance these changing priorities is determined by a 'policy space' constrained by incomplete law enforcement capacity, international legal constraints, and lack of political will (5).
• Authoritarian regimes are more likely to have more liberal immigration regimes than democratic countries, likely because authoritarian governments do not have to be responsive to concerns about immigrant culture or depression of domestic wages. They are also more willing to use mass deportation to expel immigrants, meaning that rapid policy changes can be made at lower cost (7, 17).
• Authoritarian regimes or those lacking independent judiciaries are also less likely to provide rights to migrant workers, further reducing the social costs of allowing immigration. When these rights do exist, they are also less likely to be enforced in authoritarian countries (7-8, 18-19).
• Some rights are generally present or lacking in both democracies and autocracies. The most common rights present in democracies, but lacking in autocracies, are the right to unionize, the right to equal pay, freedom of association, the ability to keep passports, and the right to request family reunion (19).
• The national context of each country greatly affects the formation of its immigration regime. One of the best examples is the Gulf states, which are able to implement an extremely liberal immigration regime because oil wealth allows them to support citizens without concerns about depression of local wages (8).
• Liberal market economies generally have much more liberal immigration regimes than welfare states, in particular for low-skilled labour, which is generally restricted in welfare states. Regimes for highly skilled labourers tend to be liberal in all countries, and low-skilled labour regulations depend on competition from domestic workers (9-10).
• Liberal market economies tend to give migrant workers fewer rights than welfare states, particularly social democratic welfare states, which generally attempt to avoid having a group of second-class citizens with limited rights (10).
• Liberal market economies are more likely to impose certain requirements on immigrants, specifically restrictions on union membership and language requirement for work. The claim that liberal market economies are more open to immigration in general is unfounded, only being true for some forms of unskilled labour migration (22-24).
• The methodology of this study is explained from page 11 to page 14.
• With the exception of Singapore -- which allows highly skilled workers the opportunity to become full citizens after a period of residency -- all wealthy autocracies included in the study only offer temporary work arrangements without the opportunity of permanant status or citizenship (15).
• Whereas wealthy democracies all have multiple tiers of immigration control which distinguish between skilled and unskilled labour, often subdividing skilled labour, the only wealthy autocracy with a tiered system in Singapore. All of the Gulf States maintain only a single immigration regime without regard to skill level (18).
• The author notes a number of potential issues with the research presented, namely the geographic restriction of information to wealthy nations, essentially limiting analysis to continental European democratic welfare states, the liberal democracies of the Anglo-sphere, and the autocracies of the Persian Gulf. The general applicability of these conclusion is thus limited (27).
• The author suggests that the non-ratification of the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families [UNCMW] by most wealthy states is due to the perception that it demands too many rights. The author instead suggests a treaty demanding core rights in order to promote the full realization of these before moving on to the more ambitious goals of the UNCMW (28-29).